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Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Diversification: SAIL to export to new markets in Africa, Asia: Report

GIVING a new direction to its marketing strategy, Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) is scouting to enhance its presence in the global markets through exports. 10 per cent of SAIL’s saleable steel production will be targeted for the new markets overseas, including Africa, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, an executive of the PSU said.
“SAIL is also streamlining its channel management to address the needs of customers in untapped geographies. In the times to come, SAIL would... focus on retail sales with higher volumes and deeper reach along with exploring effective ways of transportation and logistics,’’ SAIL chairman P K Singh said. SAIL’s new marketing strategy is aimed at gaining a competitive edge in the market. “For SAIL, the new marketing strategy, with customer retention through enhanced customer experience as its mantra, is a way to consolidate its market leadership and is a crucial tool for the turnaround of the firm in the near future,” the chairman said.
The CMD said, “Big challenges offer great opportunities. Capacity addition by other companies enhances market competition and in such a scenario SAIL’s intelligent workforce, experienced manpower and new assets are great advantages.”
Singh said that while retaining its core marketing values, SAIL was strengthening its market-centric and consumer-oriented approach for reaching out to more customers. “At SAIL, customer-value management is supreme. With the stabilisation of most of our new and modernised mills, we are diversifying our product basket with several value-added and ready-to-use products,” he said.
He also identified consolidation of its market leadership as a crucial tool for the turnaround of the company.
The PSU posted a net loss of Rs 539 crore in Q2FY18 as against a net loss of Rs 732 crore in Q2FY17. It was the tenth straight loss in a row for the steelmaker.
The Maharatna PSU registered a 21 percent growth in net sales revenue which stood at Rs 13,442 crore for the second quarter of FY17-18 (Q2FY18) as against Rs 11,080 crore in Q2FY17 with its emphasis on increasing share of high value products leading to higher revenues.
Despite improved sales revenue, earnings were impacted by a rise in imported coal prices.
SAIL operates and owns five integrated steel plants at Bhilai, Rourkela, and Durgapur, Bokaro and Burnpur (Asansol) and three special steel plants at Salem, Durgapur and Bhadravathi.